Bridging the divide: Valuing critical practice in entrepreneurship education

Jarvis, C.; Chang, J.

Abstract

Much of the literature suggests that entrepreneurship education tends to take one of two paths: the ‘traditional’ classroom based, academic theory led approaches that are perceived as more critical and academically rigorous or practice-led ‘learning by doing’ approaches that are typically seen as less critical and perhaps even of questionable academic standing (Tosey et al, 2014). In this paper we make the argument for developing critical practice – or praxis – in entrepreneurship education. We suggest that whilst traditional approaches to teaching entrepreneurship are based on being about entrepreneurship, an emphasis on critical practice shifts the focus to doing entrepreneurship reflexively (Sarasvathy and Dew, 2008), and to developing the mind set to support this.
Our paper draws on our qualitative (interviews, focus groups, reflective logs), longitudinal research amongst entrepreneurship students at two UK universities that place an emphasis on critical practice, adopting a phenomenological approach to study the lived experience of learning (team) entrepreneurship and to explore the influence of critical practice on the development of entrepreneurial skills, capacities and mind sets.
Both programmes adopt similar problem-posing, emancipatory pedagogies (Freire, 1996) based on Tiimiakatemia's approach to 'learning by doing' in teams (Partanen, 2012; Pӧysӓ-Tarhonen et al, 2010), adapted to meet the demands of the UKHE environment. Students are coached, rather than taught, and are fully active participants with responsibility for shaping their own learning and learning opportunities. The learning process moves between the student knowing about and being able to do; to creating and developing; and, in some areas of activity, enabling others to know about and do.
We suggest that in valuing critical practice and bridging the (artificial) theory/practice divide, our approach to entrepreneurship education is transformative, both accelerating and deepening learning and the development of an entrepreneurial mind set and the capacity to thrive in complexity and uncertainty (Stacey, 2010).

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: ECIE 2016: 11th European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• Start Date: Sep 15, 2016
• End Date: Sep 16, 2016
• Acceptance Date: Mar 4, 2016
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: entrepreneurship, education, critical practice
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/913458
• Publisher URL: http://www.wikicfp.com/cfp/servlet/event.showcfp?eventid=47587
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : ECIE 2016: 11th European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship